Excerpts from „Bloodshed 2020“

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

Bloodshed is a reaction to the violence and massacre of the Iranian people in November 2019 in several cities of the country during protests against rising fuel prices, corruption and inequality. This protest by Iranians, which began on 15 November 2019 and will extend until 16 July 2020, is known as “Bloody November.”
This video-performance represents my feeling of being drowned in the blood of this barbarity against the Iranian population far from the world’s gaze, when the media does not cover these events and the international political powers do not condemn them due to lack of diplomatic interest.
Far from Iran, in exile, I seek to bear witness to the violence and murders committed by this regime.

If the first slogans of the Iranians were about the sharp rise in the price of petrol, inflation and economic problems, they very quickly became more political words with a tremendous momentum demanding the end of the Islamic regime.
When the Iranian people cry out for the mullahs to step down and make way for competent politicians, the regime does not hesitate to eliminate them in order to stay in power.

According to the Iran Human Rights Center and Reuters, the state has killed at least 1,500 people in the streets and taken more than 7,000 into custody as they peacefully demonstrated their discontent and desire for a regime change.

According to Amnesty International and the UN, more than 8,600 people have been arrested and imprisoned.

The violence of this repression has penetrated to the heart of the bereaved families with the ban on funeral ceremonies. Some bodies have still not been returned to their families and the regime’s forces have gone so far as to remove the injured and even bodies from hospitals in order to reduce the number of victims and erase all traces.

Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, denounced “multiple violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

According to Cécile Coudriou, President of Amnesty International France, regarding the government’s reaction to these demonstrations: “There is no respect for human rights, for human life. It’s really about maintaining power at all costs. The government has no respect for its own citizens, and we are completely outside the respect of international law.

Kaveh Madani and Mahan Ghaffari, researchers at Yale and Oxford Universities, in their latest study, have obtained figures on the death toll in November 2019 that differ from previous figures published by the media and human rights organizations. Comparing the November 2019 death toll with that of October and December, these two researchers show an excess death toll in November 2019 of between 4,200 and 4,900, which they associate directly with the repression in connection with these peaceful protests.

Since the change of regime in Iran in 1979 and the arrival of the clergy in power, the value of the currency has been divided by 1350, and the average salary of Iranians has fallen dramatically. Their passport, which used to allow them to travel to most countries in the world without a visa, has become one of the least recognized passports.

Iran is now one of the world’s largest prisons for journalists and activists and one of the leading countries in terms of executions. Iran ranks 174th out of 180 countries in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index according to Reporter Without Borders.